‘State’ of Confusion: The Crux of the Disagreement in the Obamacare Cases

In the span of two hours on Tuesday, two strikingly different opinions landed on a key part of the Affordable Care Act.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, by a 2-1 vote, found that the law does not allow the Internal Revenue Service to provide tax-credits for health insurance purchased through federal exchanges. Then, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond unanimously found the opposite – that the law does, in fact, give the IRS that power.

The conflicting decisions essentially come down to one thing: definition of “the State.”